Would ‘Arkham Knight’ outsell ‘Arkham City’?

I wonder if many of you guys are really thinking what I am. Well it all depends on where your interest lies. I am a statistician guy and a huge Batman fan, so one of the first thing that pops out of my mind when I hear about a new game or a new movie coming out is: Would it outsell its predecessor? And the answer is often always and pretty obviously in the form of a question: Why not? It definitely has got a lot larger fan base than its predecessor!

Although it is often more than natural for a sequel of great prequels to cake walk its predecessor, it cannot really always be guaranteed. A sequel definitely has a lot more reasons to over-shadow its predecessor, however sometimes, those few reasons are all that a prequel need to stand its ground. Without going too much deep into Game’s psychology, I’d like to discuss: (with some technical material, Of-course! What you thought?). Whether it’s possible for ‘Arkham Knight’ to out-do the great feats already under the belt of ‘Arkham City’? In short: would ‘Arkham Knight’ outsell ‘Arkham City’?

When does Batman Arkham Knight come out? Would we see an Batman Arkham Knight Xbox 360 version? If you guys are finding answers to such questions, this is not the place where you should come looking. You will find that information spread all over the internet. An comparison of ‘Arkham Knight’ vs ‘Arkham City’is where this article contentrates. If you guys are here to read this article, Batman Arkham knight 2014 trailer is definitely not one of the things you need to see. Its because you all already must have seen it like a dozens of times. Batman Arkham Knight rumors were out there even before the release of ‘Arkham Origins’ and the fans took a deep breath once, finally they could see it on E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo).

Doesn’t matter how much I want to, but without jumping too early on a certain conclusion, lets discuss some of the aspects in favor of our beloved and to be beloved games: Arkham City and Arkham Knight.

Reasons in favor of Batman: ‘Arkham City’:

1. Console/Platform:

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First thing to pop out of your mind: What on Earth, does Platform has anything to do with the selling of a game. Well the answer is pretty simple: why would a gamer buy a game, if he/she doesn’t possess the Platform to play the game on? (Of-course, the answers was going to be in the form of a question, what did you think?) Confused? Don’t be! It’s simple mathematics!

Consider, you opened up a tap and kept the bucket to be filled with water at a very slow rate under it. It’s pretty obvious that the bucket will be filled more 15 minutes later, as compared to it were when it was just 5 minutes time. Similarly, Arkham city had two consoles, (X-box360 and PS3) whose personal sales were nearly 50 million as compared to Arkham Knight, whose consoles (X1 and PS4) would probably have sold around 10-12 million hardware, when it comes out. In simple terms, this may turn out to be a huge advantage in favour of ‘Arkham City’ which also has the potential to turn out to be a game changer!

Shown above are total hardware sales of current and next gen platforms as of today.

2. Trend:

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Who’s to say Batman isn’t in trend today? Well definitely I’m not, ‘Arkham Knight’ is in talks everywhere today. Then why have I included this topic in support of ‘Arkham City’ and not ‘Arkham Knight’? One definite answer I can give is not because I had not much of other stuff to add here!

Well we all definitely support the fact that Batman is a lot bigger a brand today then it ever was. However, the positive aspect that ‘Arkham City’ had while its release regarding Trends is the release of another block buster, you got it right ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ just 8 months after the release of ‘Arkham City’ and I believe we all agree with fact that releases this close definitely have the scope of leaving large impact on each other’s business. Add to that the fact about how huge was ‘TDKR’ that year, long before its release; and if you are not aware, 42% of internet movie traffic was all for just one movie: ‘The Dark Knight Rises’(i.e. if I got the news rignt!).A movie of that magnitude definitely has a capacity of leaving certain huge impact on a game that great.

I certainly hope, I have not hurt any person’s feelings by introducing the topic of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’s’ business. I’m well aware of the incident that took place and don’t want to talk about it. However, I wanted to be professional here and cover the topic, being one.

3. Critical Acclaim:

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Not to say, ‘Arkham Knight’ wouldn’t receive any, in-fact it has all the reasons in the world to overshadow ‘Arkham City’ even in the eyes of critics; however it isn’t something ‘Arkham Knight’ already has in its pocket. Yes, ‘Arkham City’ received huge acclaim which of-course would also be more than just helpful for Arkham Knight, but it turned out to be a huge master boost for ‘Arkham City’ and while we all know Arkham Knight wouldn’t break the trend, what we also know is ‘Arkham City’ would be a tough nut to break.

A little description of what kind of acclaim ‘Arkam City’ really received, taken from Wikipedia.

Even with all our fan’s support, it would be hard for ‘Arkham Knight’ to achieve acclaim of this magnitude.

Reasons in favor of Batman: ‘Arkham Knight’:

1. Stronger fan base:

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Let’s face it, there was a reason why ‘Arkham City’ was so much more successful as compared to ‘Arkham Asylum’. Its first 10 weeks selling were nearly 2.5 times more than its predecessor. Having more number of consoles out there in the market for ‘Arkham City’ in 2011(nearly 50 million of consoles of each platform were sold) as compared to ‘Arkham Asylum’s’ nearly 30-35 million in 2009 definitely helped. But targeting a wider audience gives you exponential results only when you deal with a larger fan base! Where ‘Arkham City’ had and advantage of fans already following from just one game, ‘Arkham Knight’ on the other hand has a base created from three predecessor games and yes, you would definitely count ‘Arkham Origins’ even if it was not made by ‘Rocksteady’.

A comparison between sales of ‘Arkham Asylum’ and ‘Arkham City’ for the first 10 weeks and beyond on PS3. Similar difference can be spotted on other platforms.

2. Last game of series:

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‘Friends’, a television series loved by so many among us. It was definitely a great series and is also one of the best examples out there to prove this thought. Average viewers for every episode of ‘friends’ was around 20 million viewers, but when it came to the finale, 52 Million viewers gathered near their television to see how it all ended. The difference although is not always so great, but this was just to give you an idea. Most people always cared about how it ends rather than the original story mode, which in itself being the last game of the franchise will give ‘Arkham Knight’ pretty huge upper hand over its predecessor, which also leads us to our third reason.

3. Scope:

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Scope could be thought of as another word for imagination. While we know that the developers didn’t have any short-fall while developing ‘Arkham City‘, what we also know is restrictions are always implied on a mid-series game. ‘Arkham Knight’ being the last in the series opens up all the doors of imagination for every member of the team, which increases the limits of awesomeness we might be expecting to a totally new level

4. Villain:

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This is a gamble played by ‘Rocksteady‘ which is more than definitely going to be proved fruitful for ‘Arkham Knight’. ‘Joker‘ is definitely one of the greatest villains ever, how-ever, ‘Arkham Knight villain‘ seems to pertain qualities as how ‘Batman’ would actually be if he had ever gone south. ‘Arkham Knight Demo’ was the time the news was revealed. This quality of the ‘Arkham Knight‘ may take it long way into the people’s hearts.

Some food for thought: I would not mind any of you dis-agreeing on one or more of the arguments presented above, they are just my personal thoughts. You even might posses a million other reasons in favor of both, which you may point out in comments. However, I just hope you would be gentle and kind while doing so!

So, today I let you in on a little secret: ‘I’m Batman! No, am not. Truth is Batman isn’t real, it’s just a fictional character. But don’t tell this to anyone else. World isn’t ready to handle this truth yet, it need something or someone to rely on for its hope! Lets all enjoy ‘Arkham Knight’.